In 1971, the U.S. 'closed the gold window' starting an era of global
fiat money reference-pricing that has been unprecedented in history.
Never before had the world operated on the basis of no country anywhere
having a currency tied to something with intrinsic value like gold.
We did have the 'petrodollar' -- a U.S. dollar exchange rate based
on the deal struck between Saudi Arabia and America -- for the U.S. to
buy their oil and for the Saudis to buy U.S. dollars and bonds in return
-- that started a multi-decade period of oil companies (with the U.S.
military machine in their pocket) bullying the world into buying U.S.
dollars or getting cut off from oil and dollar supplies. But now it's
over.
This is important because the petrodollar has been the overriding
motivation explaining why the U.S. is involved in multiple wars in
various oil dependent economies and their satellites. U.S. wars have
supported the petrodollar first and foremost and this lu…